Sussex and family history site

I was living in Sompting Road up until the mid-1960s. Myrtle Stores were at 109, just up the road from Myrtle Road. I remember so much about Boundstone Lane, and the school being built on the land which my father worked as a Market Gardener. In the War, and just after, they had an orchard there, with lots of gooseberry bushes under the apple trees; daffodils in the spring time; and I used to go finding birds’ eggs along the line of elm hedge, beside the twitten – that ran along the northern edge of Dad’s gardens.

Middle Boundstone Lane then was just a true “lane” with a rough surface, big puddles in the rainy times. I was born right at the top of Upper Boundstone Lane, just below the cemetery.

Also, just at the end of the War, when I must have been about 4 1/2, I attended the South Lancing Primary School. That was a very unhappy time for me. I remember the air raid shelters, they were under the northern ramp of what is now the railway bridge. Frightening places, closed by big double doors sloping up the side of the ramp.

A teacher there, a woman whom I was frightened of, had us lined up for punishment, for trespassing on the grass slopes of the ramp. I remember something like having to dip our fingers in mustard water, and suck on our fingers. Was this just a figurement of my imagination? Or did it really happen? I cannot be sure. Anyway, the fear of that school, and the screaming from me in the mornings at having to go to school made Mum keep me at home until I was 5, then they got me into North Lancing Primary School, under Miss Daisy Humphreys. That was much better.

That is all I can come up with right now, but if anyone is interested and wishes to connect with me further, you can use my email address, anakial@hotmail.com and let me know who you are.

Alan
8th October 2008

Alan adds..
My parents, Peter and Cecily Marshall, were very close friends of Percy and Mildred Grover. The Grovers had their nursery at the corner of Boundstone Lane and the “top” road (South east corner), with several glass houses there. After retirement, Percy and Mildred moved up to near Storrington.
My dad was from a very old family of Lancing, and Mum’s parents ran Myrtle Store for several years. Dad’s parents had the semi-detached houses 2 doors up built in 1912, and the space between the back of those houses and Myrtle Crescent was market garden too.
We had a huge bonfire in Middle Road, each Nov 5th. One time, I was only a very little boy, my chip basket full of fireworks, was put “for safety” down by the fence, “out of the way.” But someone lit a roman candle on the post above, and my whole basket full went up at once. I was so sad and in tears for remainder of the evening.

Alan wrote further

Mum died on Dec 23rd 2000, as a consequence of a road accident in Sompting Road. She was knocked off her bicycle. Quite an active cyclist was Mum, at 86 yrs old. Dad survived her by almost 2 years, and spent that time in Ibiza with my sister.

Dad was related to the Bushys, Fullers, Lishers and Charles Colbourne who was a very respected butcher in Brighton (Chas. Colbourne). Colbourne’s drapery store used to be at the top of Penhill Road.

Dad’s aunt Mary lived at Skirwith, the market garden which occupied the site on the corner of Crabtree Lane and Grinstead Lane. One of their greenhouses had a grape vine growing in it. I understand that prior to the late 1800s grapes were grown extensively in Sussex, because of the high sunlight intensity between the Downs and the sea.

Then improved sea transport meant that imported wines and grapes from France made the grape industy of Sussex unviable, and the “new” crop of tomatoes became very popular.

Having grown tomatoes virtually all his life, and with a good reputation for sweet and tasty produce, Dad continued in his retirement to grow tomatoes in his little back yard garden at Cokeham Lane. He was born at The Rowans, 113 Sompting Road and told me in those years there were very few other houses in Sompting Road or Boundstone Lane. Indeed, I remember when both sides of Upper Boundstone Lane were orchards. (That is the area between Crabtree Lane and the Upper Brighton Road.) The last house on the right hand side at that time was occupied by McIntyre, one of the coal merchants. Boundstone Lane at that point was still a muddy, puddley, unsealed road surface.

A pretty good job of re-building the road was done, around 1951/2 I would say, because I left North Lancing Primary School in 1952 and it had been done whilst I was there. The foundation of the road surface was a mixture of old house bricks, flints, rubble down to a depth of approx. 1 1/2 feet. They used a steam roller for surfacing.